Author archive
By Michael L. Millenson Stealthily, AHRQ has acquired a new head, but the ax still hovers over it. Very quietly, researcher Richard Kronick, PhD was named by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to be the new director of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). He joins an organization that remains […]
By Michael L. Millenson If you wanted to know what doctors thought about money and medical practice, including plumber envy, you’d read American Medical News(AMN). That’s the biweekly newspaper the American Medical Association just announced it’s shutting down. Unlike JAMA, in which doctors appear as white-coated scientists, AMN focused on practical and political issues, not least of which was […]
If you wanted to know what doctors thought about money and medical practice you’d read American Medical News. That’s the American Medical Association newspaper where you could read about plumber envy, protesters burning their AMA membership card and, today, what sounds suspiciously like an ode to Obamacare.
If you wanted to know what doctors thought about money and medical practice you’d read American Medical News. That’s the American Medical Association newspaper where you could read about plumber envy, protesters burning their AMA membership card and, today, what sounds suspiciously like an ode to Obamacare.
A patient in an intensive care unit (Photo credit: Wikipedia) The Leapfrog Group has just released its latest report grading the safety of hundreds of individual hospitals, but the real news isn’t the “incremental progress.” It’s how a group started by some of the most powerful corporations in America has quietly […]
By Michael L. Millenson True to his proudly claimed Chicago newspaperman roots, famed movie critic Roger Ebert remained a writer literally up until the moment he died. “A lot of people have asked me how could Roger have [posted] that column one day and then die the next? Well, he didn’t know he was going […]
By MICHAEL L. MILLENSON The recent news that thousands of seniors with cancer are being denied treatment with expensive chemotherapy drugs as a result of sequestration-mandated budget cuts raises the question of whether other patients are being equally harmed, but less visibly. A careful study of the impact of past federal budget cutting suggests a troubling […]
By MICHAEL L. MILLENSON The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute has just appointed four new advisory panels that will help guide hundreds of millions of dollars in research grants. Unfortunately, while PCORI released the new advisers’ names, it neglected to tell the public who the advisory panel members really are. Let me explain. PCORI says its […]
By Michael L. Millenson In case you missed it, the shocking news was that health IT companies that stood to profit from billions of dollars in federal subsidies to potential customers poured in – well, actually, poured in not that much money at all when you think about it – lobbying for passage of the […]
By Michael L. Millenson It is as natural for doctors, hospitals, health plans and others to aggressively affirm their “patient-centeredness” as it is for politicians to loudly proclaim their fealty to the hard-working American middle class. Like the politicians, the health care professionals no doubt believe every word they say. The most accurate measure of […]